Portland's BDS Against American Companies Doing Business in Israel Like Caterpillar

Nadene Goldfoot                                          

This is an armored IDF Caterpillar D9R
called "Teddy Bear" in Israel.
Its armor allows it to work under heavy fire. 

BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions)  through the Portland City Council  is attacking Caterpillar because they sold bulldozers to Israel.  In March 2006,  the City of Portland’s Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) Committee voted 4-2 to recommend putting Caterpillar on the city’s “Do Not Buy” list. 

They will discuss it again tomorrow.    "Caterpillar Inc., is an American corporation which designs, develops, engineers, manufactures, markets and sells machinery, engines, financial products and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network." Now BDS wants to keep everyone from buying Caterpillar products.  This is boycotting Caterpillar, a very large and important industry who are located in Illinois and California.  

For the 15th consecutive year, Caterpillar Inc. was named as a Best Global Brand by Interbrand, with a ranking of #82 and an overall brand value of $5.425B.  In other words, it's an important commodity in our American economic health.                                              

IDF D9L involved in the Battle of Jenin
during Operation Defensive Shield 2002

Caterpillar is known for its tractors.  It so happens that the armored bulldozer is a basic tool of combat engineering. These combat engineering vehicles combine the earth moving capabilities of the bulldozer with armor which protects the vehicle and its operator in or near combat. Most are civilian bulldozers modified by addition of vehicle armor/military equipment, but some are tanks stripped of armament and fitted with a dozer blade. Some tanks have bulldozer blades while retaining their armament, but this does not make them armored bulldozers as such, because combat remains the primary role — earth moving is a secondary task.

Caterpillar has sold its equipment to armies before.  The British used a modified Caterpillar in WWII. " This was a conventional Caterpillar D8 bulldozer fitted with armor to protect the driver and the engine.  The bulldozers were produced in preparation for the Battle of Normandy with the tasks of clearing the invasion beaches of obstacles and quickly making roads accessible by clearing rubble and filling in bomb craters".
                                                                      

Because Israel has had this experience, it has been able to help the USA.  "During the first Gulf war the USA purchased tractor protection kits (TPK) from the Israel Military Industries (IMI) for their Caterpillar D7 bulldozers.  The armored bulldozers were mainly used in mine clearing applications. During the preparation to the war in Iraq in 2003 the United States Army purchased several D9 armor kits from the IDF and used them to produce similarly fortified D9s. These have been used to clear destroyed vehicles from roads, dig moats, erect earthen-barriers, and construct field fortifications. D9s have also been used to raze houses which sheltered insurgent snipers. Military reports on the Conflict in Iraq say that the D9s were found very effective and "received highly favorable reviews from all that benefited from their use".

Caterpillar Inc., formerly (1925–86) Caterpillar Tractor Company, is a major American manufacturer of earth-moving, construction, agricultural, and materials-handling equipment.   Its headquarters are in Peoria, Illinois. 

 Caterpillar Inc. now makes tractors, trucks, loaders, excavators, graders, scrapers, and other heavy machines used in agriculture, construction, mining, logging, and industrial warehousing. The company also makes diesel and gasoline engines for use in trucks, locomotives, ships and boats, and electricity-generating systems. More than one-half of the company’s sales are to customers outside of the United States."  From the company's plants in Illinois, the bulldozers are shipped throughout the country and the world.. Possibly not for long, though, since BDS wants to keep people from  buying their goods.  

Though BDS started in 1945, "almost every statement by BDS exponents claim that the movement originated in a July 9, 2005, “call… by Palestinian civil society organizations for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and for academic and cultural boycott of Israel.” This followed the establishment of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in Ramallah on April 6, 2004. The “Call” is portrayed as a response to Israel’s unwillingness to submit to a “ruling” of the International Court of Justice condemning Israel’s security barrier (that ruling was an advisory opinion that Israel was under no obligation accept)."  

Now this group is using Caterpillar's sales to Israel as reason to boycott Caterpillar.  BDS is simply a way of attacking Israel since Israel's Middle Eastern neighbors lost wars they had brought on in 1947-49, 1956, 1967, 1973, etc, etc, in other forms such as Intifadas.  

The United States is the major friend of Israel as always has been, being the first to vote YES when they were admitted into the UN after coming from the League of Nations.  Israel and the USA share information, morality and ideals.  
                                                                   

What this Portland City Council is doing is going against their own Oregon Governor and their country in NOT embracing Israel as a friend in need.  They are also interfering with Caterpillar Inc., decisions to sell to Israel.  The lives of 7.7 million Israelis  are being denied some of their safety needs, and thousands of workers for Caterpillar will possibly lose their jobs when the USA is trying to get people work.  

How high and mighty the City Council will feel to interfere with something they know nothing about.  They are saying that Israel is bad by barring an important company from doing business with them and not only do this to punish but to force them to do the City Council's will.  

Israel will continue to do as they see fit in order to protect its citizens and need no help from Americans who probably cannot even find Israel on a map.  Your country deals with Israel.  Your governor is against BDS.  This writer is against BDS.  I ask, who are you trying to please?  Yourselves?   The volunteers who brought up such a disgusting issue?  Are you out for justice or are you out for votes?  It's bad enough when I see a store not carrying Israeli products because of BDS, but now my own home town is trying to harm Israel?  Why? 
                                                                                

Since when do American cities meddle in International affairs?  Isn't that what the Secretary of State's job is?  This whole situation reminds me so much of Kristallnacht, November 9th to 10th 1938 in Germany.  It's the stopping people from doing business with Jews that's the same. 

Update:8:00am Portland time.  To answer my own question, the guilty party is a volunteer group called "Portland's Socially Responsible Investments Committee", an offshoot of the Human Rights Commission who is recommending to the City Council whom to include on the "do not buy" list.  This volunteer group is a part of Portland churches, activists and a group called "Jewish Voice for Peace."  They are really creating more problems, and are the opponents of peace.  One of their leaders is Noam Chomsky!  They are instigating the BDS. It all started with Portland's Human Rights Commission, which was an independent offshoot of the city's "Office of Equity and Human Rights, who endorsed the proposal to add on to their "do not buy" list to include companies that activists say play a role in the state of Israel's "occupation of Palestine"  If you ask me, this is an example of too many cooks spoiling the pot: too many groups  finally handing over the reigns to anti-Israelis and the voters not doing their homework!  

This in itself is shocking.   There never was a country of Palestine to occupy!  The land had become part of the Ottoman Empire who lost the War of WWI and all their land except Turkey itself was divided up by the Allies.  It was all internationally legal through the League of Nations.  Israel, the Jewish National Home, was made internationally legal through the League of Nations.  In fact, for years Israel gave over any such assistance to the Palestine Authority PA of Abbas.  If Palestinians are not happy they can take up their problems with him.  It's too bad that Americans do not bother with such trivialities such as what's real and what's not real when they join such groups.  Here we have a case where Jews themselves have joined this terrible bandwagon and twisted thoughts of Noam Chomsky's.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Voice_for_Peace

Reference:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_bulldozer
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/bdshistory.html
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Caterpillar-Inchttp://www.wweek.com/news/2015/10/28/portlands-obscure-human-rights-commission-sparks-anger-with-israel-palestine-vote/

BDS and the 1949 Green Line in Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                          

1920 Palestine of British Mandate

"The Green Line or (pre-)1967 border or 1949 Armistice border^[1] is the demarcation line set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between the armies of Israel and those of its neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. It served as the de facto borders of the State of Israel from 1949 until the Six-Day War in 1967. 

The War of Independence started on 29 November 1947 when Arabs responded with violence to the UN resolution on Palestine, and lasted until the signing of the Armistice Agreements in 1949.  "

The Palestinians were followers of  Haj Amin al Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, 1948 "I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers!  Murder the Jews!  Murder them all!" 
                                                                             

Professor Kontorovich, Northwestern Law School expert on International Law,  explains about The Green Line, or 1949 armistice lines, which are neither a political nor a territorial boundary and have no legal force under international law, didn’t correspond to any prior administrative border.  http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/03/the-legal-case-for-israels-settlements/

 Kontorovich says that once Great Britain left, the mandate over Palestine—which was explicitly for the purpose of re-establishing a Jewish national home—just expired. The area became essentially a territory without a sovereign.Britain left Palestine on May 14, 1948 and then Israel was announced a state, in agreement with the UN. 

                                                            

 "On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2,000 years. In an afternoon ceremony at the Tel Aviv Art Museum, Ben-Gurion pronounced the words “We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel,” prompting applause and tears from the crowd gathered at the museum. Ben-Gurion became Israel’s first premier."

                                                                                 

July 24, 1922 Palestine and Giving away 80% of the land

 After the Six-Day War, the territories captured by Israel beyond the Green Line came to be designated as East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and Sinai Peninsula (the Sinai Peninsula has since been returned to Egypt as part of the 1979 peace treaty). These territories are often referred to as Israeli-occupied territories."  President Gamal Abdel Nasser, May 27, 1967 said, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel." 
                                                                       

1949 Armistice Line

We have come to disagree with the term, Occupied Territories, which fall outside the Green Line.  This is land that was originally Judah and Samaria,  part of the Jewish Homeland as decided by the League of Nations and agreed upon also by it's counterpart and outgrowth of the United Nations.  It was in the hands of the Brits who held the mandate for 30 years, with the proviso that the Brits were to help bring about the Jewish Homeland by working with the Jews on this endeavor.  Instead, they gave away 80% of the land to Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who created TransJordan.  

Though there never has been a nation or state of Palestine, the Palestinian Arab leaders were offered a state of their own by the Brits when they saw fighting going on before Israel announced their statehood in 1947.  The Arabs refused the offer, instead opting for the whole land of Palestine for themselves and intending to drive the Jews into the sea.  They have continued to turn down offers to this day.  In fact, they have been at war with other surrounding states in 1956, 1967, 1972 and etc.

 The Kartoum Conference in 1968 had decided that all Arabs would never make peace with Israel.  Yet, the UN and USA continue to demand a 2 state solution.  Israel has always been for peace and has been willing to sit down and make peace with the Arabs, but they have arrived at a stalemate, with the Palestinians adamant about not discussing it again at this time.

This means that the UN, an organization now loaded with Arab countries who are very much against Israel, are demanding that settlements be stopped past the Green Line.  That means they want the border to be at the 1949 position, which Israel has explained over and over again to be impossible to defend and impossible to expect from Israel.  
                                                                                 

JStreet, the opposing group to AIPAC, with original funder being.George Soros, also is against Jewish settlement past the Green line and calls their communities "settlements" in "Occupied Territory."  They say they are opposed to the Global Movement of BDS but are highly opposed to Jews living in land they won in the 67 War.  This includes East Jerusalem in which is now inclusive to the city of Jerusalem and is part of Israel today.  This horrid 67 war in which Israel's neighbors ganged up on the tiny state and attacked together, only to lose to Israel, was in a sense, a blessing for Israel in that they gained back land that was intended for them in the first place.  It allowed them to be able to pray at the Kotel (Western Wall) for the 1st time since 1948 in Jerusalem.  Soros and members of this group are not skilled in International Law, nor really care about the welfare of Israel, in my opinion.  

"Soros was born in Budapest in the Kingdom of Hungary to a well-to-do non-observant Jewish family, who, like many upper-middle class Hungarian Jews at the time, were uncomfortable with their roots.  He was in the Holocaust as a young teenager, and since has become a billionaire without much education about either Judaism or Israel, for he thinks he knows better than Israel's government, and he has promoted his own ideas and not those of Israel.  He has no respect for Israelis' decisions and is dictating his ideals to American Jews.  AIPAC, on the other hand, is just the opposite and runs interference against anti-Semitism/ Israel and explains Israel's situatations and facts to American Senators.  Yet he should know that peace was not in the offering to Israel with Iraqi President Abdel Rahman Aref, saying on May 31, 1967:  "The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified.  this is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948.  Our goal is clear---to wipe Israel off the map."

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, International Law Professor, said, " I oppose the boycott of Israel. And, no, I don’t care if boycotts are occasionally effective and sometimes promote social justice. I still think it’s wrong to use economic intimidation to get your way, even if your way is just.   But one thing I hate more than boycotts are people who try to use the power of government to punish people who support boycotts."

Kontorovich explains why Israel isn't an unlawful occupying power, which is what BDS people claim.  He claims that presenting Jewish settlement in the West Bank territory (ancient Judea and Samaria) as illegal or ‘colonial’ ignores both the historical complexities of the issue and the legal circumstances.

His current presentation updates the arguments he has presented , bolstering them with new comparative research on “other countries’ settlements” and how the international community has reacted to these occupations.. 

This one is a MUST to listen to and take notes.  Kontorovich has a video to listen to on this very subject.  This explains a lot.  Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2x5UvjUs4 
                                                                             

Arabs throwing rocks at Jews on Temple Mount in Jerusalem
Hatred for Jews and Israel is taught in their schools in Judea-Samaria
Where is a movement that would get them to accept Israel?
BDS only stirs them up against Israelis.

Summary of BDS is that it is plain old ANTI SEMITISM being used for no legitimate reasons against the only Jewish State in the world.  Not only is it the only Jewish state, but the only true Democratic state in the Middle East.  For this reason, the Arabs are up in arms and have manipulated the West by playing on their basic anti-Semitic feelings towards Jews.  There is no excuse for Jews who have climbed the JStreet Band Wagon to brag that they are opposed to the Global BDS Movement who is conducting this attack on Israel and then to turn around and condemn Israelis for crossing the Green line and living on the other side on land that they have won fairly in a horrendous attack against them!  Israel happens to be one of the most open societies in the world.  Now holding 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Arabs, back when they were only populated with 5 million, 842,000 or 18% were non-Jews (655,000 Muslims, 120,000 Christians and 80,000 Druze.)  Therefore, BDS are not only running interference with Jews, but other people like themselves.  

Jews have waited since 70 CE to regain their land, almost 2,000 years.  We now have many changes happening to Israel's neighbors.  We have Egypt and Jordan signing peace agreements.  Perhaps the Palestinians will actually be ready for peace with Israel by 2070.  They are not ready right now, and BDS is not helping to bring about their change towards Israel.  

Resource:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_(Israel)
http://jstreet.org/ on boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
https://academeblog.org/2016/04/22/the-hypocrisy-of-the-anti-bds-lawsuit/
http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/03/the-legal-case-for-israels-settlements/  Prof. Kontorovich 
https://www.youtube.com/user/INSCTSU  Kontorovich's 50 minute lecture
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/04/obamas-affect-on-gilo-israel-and.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/12/part-8-rebutting-chomsky-on-gush-etzion.html  read the list of reasons at the end.  
Myths and Facts by Mitchell G. Bard, Joel Himelfarb
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/11/portland-oregon-going-anti-semitic-with.html

Cuba: Why Jews Lived But Left This Island Country

Nadene Goldfoot                                          

Cuba, island of West Indies

 Cuba is south of both the U.S. state of Florida and the Bahamas.  Havana is the largest city and capital.
Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, with an area of 109,884 square kilometres (42,426 sq mi), and the second-most populous after Hispaniola, with over 11 million inhabitants.  I note that Israel is 8,000 sq miles with 7.7 million inhabitants. 

    Going back to 1492 when Columbus, an Italian getting a loan from the Spanish royalty,  sailed the ocean with his ships; Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria,  and found a New World which would be called America, the Spanish Inquisition was in full force.  It forced many of the Jews of Spain to leave as they could not practice their religion there anymore as Spain's  laws did not continue any freedom of religion. Columbus himself could have some genes of Jews who had been taken to Rome as slaves in 70CE.   It's possible that even Columbus could have been a Marrano.  He wrote to his son in Hebrew.  He had Marranos on board working for him who were anxious to leave Spain. 

 Between those years of 1391 to 1415,  as many as 200,000 ( half the Jewish population) chose conversion and became New Christians or Conversos. Of these, many continued to practice Judaism in secret while paying lip service to the Church. They became known by the Christians as Marranos. The Jews never used the term Marrano themselves although some knew of it. The Jews referred to themselves as anusim "those who were forced to convert". The Spanish Inquisition was introduced into Spain in 1480 and began a horrid campaign of repression, continuing into 1492.  Marranos left Spain at this time and many settled in Cuba.  

 During four separate trips that started with the one in 1492, Columbus landed on various Caribbean islands that are now the Bahamas as well as the island later called Hispaniola. Before sighting Hispaniola, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China. 

 It is popular lore that three Jewish men arrived after the expulsion from Spain in 1492. Some believe that these Jews traveled to Cuba with Columbus: Luis de Torres on the Santa Maria, Juan de Cabrera on La Pinta, and Rodrigo de Triana on La Nina. All three were Marranos, or forced Jewish converts to Catholicism.  Francisco Gomez de Leon, a Jew, was put on trial during the Inquisition in Havana. He was later executed in Cartagena and his large fortune was confiscated.                                                                            

By the 16th Century, Jews who had remained in Spain but continued to practice Judaism secretly, even though they had gone through baptism because they had been forced to, not by their own volition,  were called a nasty name; Marranos, meaning SWINE.  They were called this because according to Judaism, they were not to eat these animals.  These "Marranos" had grown as a group in Spain that after the 1391 massacres and the Dominican campaigning at the beginning of the 15th century, they had become very prominent socially, economically, and politically.


                                                                     

At the end of the 19th century, more Jews moved to Cube from the USA, mainly from Florida.  In 1904, they established the United Hebrew Congregation.  In 1914, when WWI started,  The Union Hebrea Shevet Ahim Synagogue, made up of Sephardim from Turkey, Syria and Mexico was founded.  Amazingly, the Inquisition had followed Jews and Marranos to Mexico after these past 400 years!

After World War I (1914-1917) Jews immigrated from Eastern Europe.  By 1924, Cuba had 24,000 Jews,  and after 1933, they were coming in from Germany and Austria.  Many had intended to proceed to the United States after procuring passports.  Jewish immigration was almost completely stopped in 1947.
                                                                 

 On May 13, 1939,  an immigrant ship, SS St Louis with  wanted to stop in Cuba from Germany loaded with 900  fleeing Jews and were not allowed.  They had to return from whence they came from and face death instead of freedom.
                                                                         

In 1959, Cuba had 8,000 to 10,000 Jews of whom 90% lived in Havana.  This is when Fidel Castro became Prime Minister, and ruled for the next 47 years as that and then as President.  Considerable emigration followed the establishment of the Castro regime. This was when other Cubans were also leaving and heading for the USA.   Mainly, this was motivated by the new economic policy of Communism.  The Jewish population in 1990 was 1,000; nearly all in Havana.

Adath Israel is the only Orthodox synagogue remaining in Cuba. In December 2006, the Cuban Jewish community celebrated its 100th anniversary. 

"In February 2007 The New York Times estimated that there are about 1,500 known Jews living in Cuba, most of them (about 1,100) living in Havana. Cuba has one kosher butcher shop on the entire island. For a time it had no rabbi, but by 2007, one was based in a Havana synagogue. He often encourages visiting Jews to give Tzedakah (charity) for the Jewish Cubans and for Israel.  Alan Gross traveled to Cuba to help the small Jewish community, but he was detained in Cuba from 2009 to 2014. Some Jewish Americans originally from Cuba are also fierce critics of the Cuban regime like Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and academic Ruth Behar. Israel also continues to have an embargo against Cuba.                                                 

On the freshly painted, salmon-colored walls of Alberto and Rebeca Meshulam’s apartment, two portraits of the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, frame the entranceway leading to a wide, airy vestibule.

 "There are reasons Chabad, an orthodox movement,  doesn’t have a house of its own, stemming from a years-long dispute with Cuba’s 1,500-member Jewish community. Indeed, over the past eight years, relations between Chabad, the haredi Orthodox outreach organization, and Cuban Jewish leadership have deteriorated to the point where Lubavitch emissaries will not step foot in the city’s Orthodox synagogue, Adath Israel.  Meanwhile, Havana’s Conservative Beth Shalom, the largest synagogue in Cuba, decries Chabad’s ongoing presence here as illegal.

As I read this information, I was very surprised, but the difficulty could be that Chabad is Ashkenazi, and Cuba's Jews follow Sephardi Judaism.  I wonder how Havana's Paronato Synagogue is doing.  It  is a very beautiful synagogue.  You can see it on my last resource listed of synagogues. Several hundred people had immigrated to Israel.   

So in Cuba, a country without a permanent Chabad outpost, the Meshulams — he’s a retired physician, she’s a homemaker — are proud supporters. Their home in this city’s tranquil Nuevo Vedado neighborhood has become a de facto headquarters for the handful of mostly Latin American Lubavitch emissaries who visit the island on major Jewish holidays.                                                  
                                                               

There are Cubans who could be carrying some genes from some of these Marranos or today's name of Anusim.  Wouldn't they be surprised to find a whole new history awaiting their family.  

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/11/when-britain-usa-rest-of-world-refused.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Cuba
http://www.timesofisrael.com/chabad-emissaries-face-shut-doors-in-havana/
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/syncarib.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro

Portland, Oregon Going Anti-Semitic With BDS

The college I graduated from in 1958 as a teacher.
Then, full of returning older vets anxious to get an education

Nadene Goldfoot                                            

I would not want to take any classes at Portland State U today.
It has changed so much.  

Portland, Oregon, now known as the Weird City, certainly has changed from the city I was born and  bred in.  I did not know of 
anti-Semitism until high school, when I learned I was not accepted
into certain sororities because of being Jewish, so we Jews had our own.    When I heard someone saying horrible things about Jews, I
would surprise them, since I was a blond Jewess, and ask a point-blank question about their feelings.  Attitudes were improving since 8 years later, my brother was voted in as Student-Body President.Now, I'm proud to say, I hold
dual citizenship since 1980-85; can't remember when we filled out the papers.    Again, anti-Semitism is building up.  

                                                                             

   
 The City Council  is going full steam ahead with BDS against Israel, wanting to be against the Caterpillar Co because they had been working in Israel.
                                                                             
The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement aims to demonize, deligitimize, and destroy the Jewish nature of Israel, with the result of denying to Jews their right of national self-determination.
                                                                               

Reed College, Portland, Oregon
My brother graduated from here, and my son attended his 1st year here. We already have  seen acts of violence and one unacceptable use of derogatory epithets used against Jewish students at some colleges. . Even if some BDS supporters are Jewish, that does not cleanse the campaign of the increasing stench of anti-Semitism. We can fool ourselves and say that BDS campus campaigns are not directed against the Jewish students, but BDS does not target Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Instead, in the name of human rights for Palestinians in the Middle East,
BDS targets only the one Jewish state, Israel, which consistently is rated as having the highest level of “freedom” of the 57 countries in the Middle East.  Can they really say that they’re concerned about human rights?

They are using college and university campuses  and cities across the country to divest their funds from Israeli companies and American companies like Caterpillar that do business with Israel.  They are boycotting Israeli scholars and Israeli universities from any meetings others may be attending.
                                                                             

Why are Americans going along with something that the Arab League started December 2,  1945?  This was during the British Mandate period of 30 years in Palestine that was started after WWI.  The Arabs got wind of the Jewish Homeland planned by the League of Nations and knew the Brits would be leaving in 1948 and the Jews would have their state.                          

Jews from European refugee camps arrived and immediately found themselves in
the War of Independence 1947-1949 fighting Arab attackers.  They had been kept
from Palestine by the British who were given the mandate to help Jews build the Jewish Homeland.

 They had been offered a state for themselves but they had refused it.  Instead they just decided to drive the Jews out.  So the Arab League, made up of 22 Middle East and African countries, broadened the boycott in 1948 to include trade between Arab countries and Israel and all companies throughout the world that did business with Israel as well as their business partners.  

They are in the act of isolating the Jewish state from the international community as well as inflicting economic harm on them.  The Middle East Arab League is made up of Kings and Emirs, and are not Democratic states, which Israel is.  Israel has been the only Democratic state there.  Israel has faced opposition with acts of war against them by these same Arabs since they announced their statehood on May 14, 1948.
                   

Harry S. Truman
President of USA 1945-1953

They were accepted by the United Nations then with Harry Truman voting in favor of their state.

Now the Arabs, mainly the Palestinians living in Gaza, Judea and Samaria are carrying on BDS since their Arab cohorts have lost every war they have fought against Israel, and I might add, Israel won without any manpower from the USA.  It was the men and women of Israel who did all the fighting and who lost their lives.  Gaza continues to lob rockets, mortars and missiles down on  southern Israel to this day.  Fatah and Hamas can't agree as to how they are going to slice the pie that they are drooling over, the land of Israel, so they are usually not cooperative with each other except in demonizing the Jewish state of Israel with false charges of crimes against humanity, especially themselves, and singling out only one country, Israel, for censure and abuse while ignoring other abuses they themselves inflict on each other and Israel.
                                                                             

Negev Bedouin citizen of Israel

Their plan is advertising their need for their state of Palestine while they attack Israel.  They do nothing but feed their population with hatred towards Jews and Israel.  They are not doing a thing to show they would be compatible neighbors of Israel.   They have had no intention of running a country by themselves.  They have  not  been a nation-minded people.  Long ago they reported to Britain and others that they were Syrian-Palestinians; coming  from Syria.  Many of them came from all around the area, but mostly most likely, were from Syria.  They came into Palestine when they heard that Jews had returned and were building in the 1880s, a possible place to find jobs they did not have in Syria or other homelands.
                                                                                                                         

Khaled Mashal b: 28 May 1956 in Silwad,
West Bank
Hamas leader since 1996,
a Jordanian Palestinian

Fatah and Hamas leaders
Abbas and Mashal

When the Arab League told the Syrian Arabs that they were attacking Israel in 1947-1949, they could have their homes when the battle was over.  They were used as pawns by the League, encouraged to leave the area to give the fighters room, and then to return and take over, but the Jews surprised them by winning.  They have been pawns of the Arab League ever since.  And now the rest of the world has joined the League's bandwagon with their anti-Semitic attitude and are joining in on the BDS war against Israel.
                                                                       

Israel's IDF-made up of  units of friends:
Ethiopian Jew, Druze, Christian and Muslim stand together.
Israel has 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Arabs-all citizens of Israel
NO Apartheid in Israel!  And their training Sergeant was most likely a woman!
Any apartheid going on here was practiced by the Brits and Arabs against the Jews.  
We come from the people who created the Golden Rule: Don't treat others as you wouldn't want to be treated.  

My own city, Portland, sucked into such an attitude is truly depressing.  It doesn't say much about the attitude of the many across this great land  during this last 10 years or more, and how they had admired
Israel for a while in 1967 when they won against the great odds of being attacked by many Arab states and coming out of it-by themselves-a winner.  That admiration has been short lived, I'm afraid, by the smell of oil and the fear of an empty tank.  Israel again is the scapegoat of this world while trying to stick up for themselves and survive.
                                                                             

Minor Arab leader Haj Amin al- Husseini of Jerusalem
conspiring with Nazis even Hitler, to destroy Jews in Palestine-
Since Emir Feisal, soon to be a King, okayed the Jews' return

Before anyone complains that anytime anyone criticizes Israel, we call anti-Semitism here, this BDS is so bad and so full of anti-Semitism that our own USA Congress made it illegal for any US company to cooperate with the boycott back in 1976 and 1977, and here we have our city council considering accepting BDS with a meeting called again to discuss the factors of it on the 30th of November at City Hall.

How is this happening?  In 2001, the movement disguised itself in a false veneer acting very moral and spoke as if they were human rightists and falsely branded Israel as a "racist, apartheid state," which people in the UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban concurred with.  Here we do have the most racist people, who can't accept Jews back into their original habitat to join their fellow family members because they are Jews, and many-European at that.  It's the old story of the pot calling the kettle black!  Israel is the exact opposite of an apartheid state.  It was created as a refuge for Jews who have not been accepted into the nations of the world, and were in danger of being annihilated.

The movement grew in strength since in 2005, a declaration of a coalition of Palestinian organizations accusing Israel of racial discrimination.  Israel, made up of Jews from all over the world who were in every little nook and cranny, and 1.7 million Arabs of every description, many of whom suffered from discrimination by other Arab groups. The Palestinian Arabs, for Jews living in Palestine  were Palestinians also up until May 14, 1948,  declared Israel to be breaking international law and called upon the world (people of conscience") to join their boycott and divestment program.

Yasser Arafat founded the Council of National and Islamic forces in Palestine and of course signed on.  This was at the start of the 2nd Intifada in 2000 so they could organize a unified effort among the many Palestinian factions to oppose Israel and coordinate their terror attacks against this tiny Jewish country.  The Council is made up of Hamas, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) another terrorist group, -General Command, all 3 who are on the list of terrorists in the USA.  Their goal is commitment to the elimination of Jews and the Jewish state through terrorism and violent means.

Since 2002, boycotting Israeli scholars has also been the activity of the movement, and when the Palestinians in 2005 worked to bring it about further, the US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was created.  The American group was endorsed by over 800 american faculty and promoted a boycott of all Israeli scholars and cultural and educational institutions.  This violated the most basic principle of academia; THE FREE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.    It was just like the Nazi's efforts to purify Germany by branding Jews as pariahs, and targeting them for economic and social boycotts.

Hannah  Rosenthal, the US State Department's former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, has condemned academic boycotts of Israel.  She said, "when academics from Israel are boycotted this is not objecting to a policy---this is ANTISEMITISM."

BDS entering Portland and being considered is destroying what we once had:  a love and acceptance for the citizens of Portland,   Jews especially, and every Portlander no matter what religion they are, should be shocked that Israel is being demonized like they had been in the 20s and 30s in Germany and singled out as the only country in the world  to be censured and abused, while ignoring other human rights abuses that are rampant throughout the Middle East.  There have been other religious ethnic minorities, such as Christians, and Muslim women  whose rights do not match the western world's women.  This movement exposes its bigotry against Jews and should never had been accepted by our city fathers.  .

Resource:  http://www.amchainitiative.org/1842-2/  AMCHA Initiative, Protecting Jewish Students
http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2014/05/the_bds_bullies_take_over/
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2016/11/bds-and-1949-green-line-in-israel.html